Let's pretend for a moment that Toronto had won their 2017 1st round playoff series against Washington it would have meant they played Pittsburgh in the 2nd round. So had that actually happened how do you think Toronto would have done against them? Keep in mind against Washington all 6 games were all decided by 1 goal and 5/6 games went into overtime, along with the fact that Toronto was up 2-1 going into Game 4. So at the very least Toronto was not the push over a lot of people predicted prior to the playoffs, since there was some people who said Washington wins in 4 or 5 games at the most.

Now if the regular season had meant anything Toronto was 2-1 against Pittsburgh in their 3 games played against them. Also before anyone brings it up I know I their 81st game when Toronto clinched their playoff spot the Penguins had rested a lot of their players, with the exception of Crosby and Kessel. However Toronto only won 5-3 and were losing 3-2 in the 3rd period, so it wasn't an automatic win for Toronto.